Man’s Perceptions of God’s Intentions

Psalm 51:1-6                     Revelation 21:1-7                           John 9:1-7

Man’s Perceptions of God’s Intentions

A story is told about a man working in a field one day. Suddenly he saw someone running towards him screaming hysterically, “Richard! Richard! Come quickly! Your house is burning down!” The man dropped all his tools and ran as fast as his legs would carry him. And then suddenly he stopped. “What’s wrong with me?” he said out loud. “My name isn’t Richard, and I don’t have a house.” 

The disciples of Jesus sometimes remind me of this man. They just didn’t stop to think things through before reacting. “Who sinned,” they asked. “This man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Knee-jerk reactions often tend to end in embarrassment and retractions or, unfortunately, irreparable relational damage. It is safer and wiser to wait until you have evaluated all possible angles before opening your mouth or posting your thoughts on any social media platform, for that matter. 

Now, there are several things that are very interesting in this passage. The first is the assumption that personal sin was the only possible cause of this man’s disability. 

John tells us that this man had been blind from birth. Their question was who sinned…the man himself or his parents?  At this point, we must ask ourselves what their understanding of this man’s sin would have been. Did they believe that an unborn child might sin? Or did they think that is affliction was a form of punishment in anticipation of a later sin? 

It was a common belief at that time that all diseases and disabilities arose from personal sin. This can be seen, for instance, in the rabbinic saying "There is no death without sin and there is no suffering without iniquity" (Shabbat 55a.17). In other words, the Rabbis taught that there was a direct relationship between a person’s sinful actions and the punishments meted out against him. 

This belief presents us with only two possible options. The first is that the parents' sin was responsible. This position could be justified by citing Exodus 20:5, “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me.”  However, this seems to be referring to an active generational sin (the grammatical form used here [Qal active participle] most often expresses continuous action, i.e., those who are hating me). But this commandment may have been used to defend the idea of personal parental sin being visited upon the children because God appeared to correct an erroneous generalisation later in Ezekiel 18:20 where he clearly stated, “The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son.” 

Now, the other possible justification for this option is the story of David’s adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah. The child conceived in this sinful act died while David and Bathsheba lived. However, it is not prudent to apply a single case universally, especially since God’s words to Ezekiel appear to advise against such a broad generalisation, so I think we can safely move away from this option – that the parent’s sin was the cause of the child’s disability. 

The second option is that the man himself had somehow sinned before birth. Whether this was possible or not was a matter of rabbinic debate. Some rabbis thought it possible, while others thought it impossible. For example, in Bereshit Rabbah 63:6, Rabbi Yohanan, commenting on the story of Jacob and Esau, interpreted the words "struggled together in the womb” as " this one ran to kill that one and that one ran to kill this one.". In other words, he believed that the babies tried to murder each other in the womb. However, even though it’s not clear how widely held the prenatal sin view was, apparently it was widely held enough to generate deliberation…and this idea may be what the disciples had in mind when they asked the question…but there is no Scriptural support for such a view. 

And I could not find any indication that people believed in retroactive punishment…in other words, that his being born blind was a result of a sin he had yet to commit. But I may be wrong…

However, I want us to stop and think for a moment about the indescribable grief that this type of thinking can inflict upon parents of special-needs children. Imagine, if you will, a parent, or a special-needs child for that matter, who is already struggling with the reality of their situation, suddenly being confronted by someone who suggests that they may be directly responsible for the given condition. People are not abstract theories that can be debated without consequence. There may well be cases where the sinful actions of the parents (such as drug abuse, alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity, or involvement in the occult) may have had a direct negative impact on the child, but it is not for us, as believers in a forgiving God, to speculate or to accuse. Rather, this kind of suffering ought to be met with the same kind of compassion seen in the actions of Jesus when confronted with misery and pain. 

Be that as it may, in his reply to the disciple’s question, both the man and his parents were exonerated by Jesus, but, interestingly, as the story unfolded, the two parties chose different paths forward. The healed man became a courageous witness to the truth and later became a believer in Jesus, whereas his parents became terrified capitulators as they surrendered to a fear of being excommunicated from the synagogue…a not-so-irrational fear, by the way, when we see later that this is exactly what the Pharisees did to their healed son.

But Jesus’ reply to the disciples raises a number of interesting questions regarding suffering. Jesus didn’t really provide them (or us) with a reason for the disability or the source of the suffering. He simply indicated that suffering, or in this case disability, may serve to further the work of God in the world.  

There may be a faint echo here of what Joseph said to his brothers in Genesis 50:20. “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” But there isn’t really a direct connection between these two stories because what the brothers did was definitely sinful. Perhaps what the Apostle Paul said later in Romans 8:28 is a better link: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

So, I think it is safe to say at this point, that while personal sin may be a cause for suffering, not all suffering is necessarily caused by personal sin. 

Now, having said this, I do believe that because of the sin of Adam and Eve, suffering entered the world…therefore suffering is linked to sin, or rather to what is known as “original sin”. The perfect world created by God was broken at the time of the Fall, and so we live amid that brokenness…and suffering is part and parcel of that brokenness. But with the death of the obedient, sinless second Adam (Jesus), this situation is reversed for those who by faith move from being in the first Adam to being in the second Adam. 

And as Jesus is in the process of making all things new, a time will come when there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain (Revelation 21:4). We see glimpses of this future reality whenever people are miraculously healed like this man born blind…or when people are given the grace to use their suffering for God’s glory because they have come to understand that as we presently live this earthly life in the context of the historical calamity brought about by the disobedience of our first ancestors, we remain subject to suffering. Joni Eareckson Tada is probably the best modern-day example of someone who has used disability, in her case quadriplegia, for immeasurable good. 

Regardless of the situation(s) we may have to face in life, we must always remember that as long as it is day…as long as there is life…Jesus continues to work, and his work is always good in spite of the perception of humanity. The presence of Jesus is light, and we are told in John 1 that his light overcomes the darkness…a recreation image mirroring the 1st day of the 1st Creation.

Now, I cannot explain suffering…I wish I could. In our line of work, Louise and I have witnessed the most unbelievable pain and unimaginable misery. But closer to home, our own son has special-needs children. Believe me, I have asked all the questions there are to ask…I have prayed all the prayers…I have even blamed myself. But this story of the man born blind teaches me that my thoughts are not God’s thoughts…my perceptions cannot come close to revealing God’s intentions…intentions that we have already seen are always good. 

And so I surrender to what the Scriptures reveal about the God I profess to believe in…his infinity (that there is no beginning or end to him), his omnipotence (that he is almighty and that nothing is impossible for him), his immutability (that he cannot and will not change), his omniscience (that he knows all things), his omnipresence (that he is everywhere and consequently we are never alone), his holiness, his wisdom, his faithfulness, his justness, his righteousness, his mercifulness, his kindness, his compassion, his goodness, his graciousness, his lovingkindness, and his gloriousness. When I face what I cannot explain, I choose to focus on what I know about God, and I leave the inexplicable in his hands.

A little spittle and clay…a quick wash at the Pool of Siloam (a word, John tells us that means “sent”) …the same pool, by the way, from which water was drawn during the celebration of the Festival of Booths where Jesus revealed himself to be the Light of the World (John 8:12) …a little spittle and clay, a quick wash, and the man born blind came home seeing. But, as we shall see later, this healing was only the beginning. This man, sent to the pool of “sent” by the one who was sent into the world to reveal the Father, became the one sent to display the work of God in his life.

As the story unfolds, the physical blindness of this man becomes a metaphor for spiritual blindness, and the charge of sin, at first laid at the door of the man and his parents, is shown to be the reality of us all…because, dearest beloved brethren, we all have sinned, and we all fall short of the glory of God. We are all deprived of the light of life and it is only in Jesus that spiritual sight can be restored. 

This man, born and raised in darkness, served to reveal Jesus as the Light of the world, but he also served to expose the collective sinful state of humankind. The disciple’s evaluation of his condition was that he or his parents must have sinned…an evaluation that did not seem to take into consideration the sinfulness of us all. Jesus pointed out that neither evaluation was correct, declaring that this man’s affliction was so that the works of God should be revealed in and through him. This should caution anyone when tempted to pronounce judgment on another’s suffering…or upon our own trials and tribulations…as it teaches us that God often does his best work in the fiercest of flames. 

Your present difficulties or the difficulties of those around you may not be an indication of God’s displeasure. Adversity may not be the enemy we think it is. Indeed, if it draws us closer to our Lord, it may be the greatest friend we have. 

And so, this is the challenge I wish to leave with you today. We have all met Jesus. At some stage in our lives, he came and revealed himself to us, and we believed in him. Last week we heard how he brought one of our own to himself in Jody’s testimony. But it is what we do with this meeting…it is what we do with this revelation that matters. Jesus often chooses to use our suffering as a witness to those who are blind to his goodness. It is when we testify that we will still believe the truth even if he does not deliver us from whatever fiery furnace we may face…it is when we declare that we will not deny him even if we should die…it is at that moment that their eyes are opened to the reality of a God who transcends the suffering of this world and who alone makes sense of it. They may choose to shut their eyes, to be sure, but they can never say that they did not see.

Do not hide from your weakness as it is in your weakness that his strength is revealed. “Not only that,” the Apostle Paul tells us, “but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5

Shall we pray?

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2023